Page 1 of The Apple Cider Orchard

Chapter 1

Molly Harris hadn’t cried at her own grandmother’s funeral, but she very nearly did over a broken conference call.

The screen froze just as the client’s face sharpened into interest – not exactly enthusiasm, but close enough that she felt the shift like a change in air pressure – until the damn spinning wheel appeared. Buffering. Silence.

‘Molly?’ Her boss frowned from the far end of the boardroom table.

She didn’t look away from her laptop. ‘One sec,’ she said crisply, fingers already flying, toggling between tabs, rerouting the call through her phone hotspot. Her pulse thudded in her ears, but her voice stayed level.

Calm was her currency.

The Manhattan skyline stretched behind them in plate-glass perfection, the late afternoon sun slanting between steel towers. Forty-two floors up, the city hummed – traffic horns muted, helicopters slicing the air like clockwork – but inside the conference room there was only the low buzz of impatience and the faint, traitorous wheeze of Molly’s own breath.

She fixed the situation in less than twenty seconds.

‘I’m back,’ she purred seamlessly to the client. ‘As I was saying … we’re not just selling a product. We’re selling a feeling. Belonging. Trust.’

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her boss lean back, arms crossed, watching her the way one might observe a high-wire act: impressed but alert to the possibility of a fall.

Molly clicked to the next slide, her reflection briefly ghosting across the glossy screen; dark hair pulled into a ponytail, tailored blazer, lipstick just bold enough to mean business, pale skin that hadn’t seen the sun in some time.

She talked them through the campaign with practiced ease: market data, emotional hooks, storytelling arcs. She spoke about warmth and connection as if she hadn’t spent the last six nights leaving the office after nine, eating takeaway salads at her desk while the cleaning crew worked around her.

When it was over, there was a beat of silence. Then applause; polite, corporate, but real.

‘Well done,’ the client said. ‘This feels … human.’

Molly smiled. She always smiled at that line.

By the time the meeting ended, her adrenaline had nowhere to go. It pooled in her chest, sharp and restless, even as her colleagues filed out with murmured congratulations. Her assistant hovered in the doorway.

‘You okay?’ Jenna asked, lowering her voice.

‘I’m great,’ Molly chirped automatically, already packing up her laptop. ‘Could you send the revised deck to legal and schedule a follow-up for early next week?’

Jenna hesitated. ‘Molly … it’s five p.m. On Friday.’

She blinked, genuinely surprised. ‘Right,’ she said after a moment. ‘Of course.’

Molly returned to her office; glass walls, minimalist desk, a single framed photo on the credenza behind her. In it, her beloved grandmother, the woman who’d raised her, sat in a messy kitchen, flour on her hands, laughing at something just out of frame.

Her phone buzzed.

Cole.

She ignored it. It buzzed again. Molly sighed and picked up. ‘Hey,’ she said, already scrolling through emails with her free hand.

‘Do you know what day it is?’ her brother asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A disaster, unless I get three more approvals before close of business.’

‘It’s been a year, Mol.’

Her fingers stilled. She leaned back in her chair, the city sprawling below her like a map she knew by heart.

‘I know,’ she said quietly.

Though she’d been trying her utmost to forget.